Angine de Poitrine

Two boys from La Baie

The two people inside the costumes are from La Baie, a borough of Saguenay in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec. They have played together since they were 13, which by their own count is around two decades. Angine de Poitrine, French for angina, was formed in 2019, and in 2022 they retired their previous project to concentrate on it alone. On stage and in print they go by Khn de Poitrine, who plays a double-neck guitar and bass and sings, and Klek de Poitrine, who plays drums and sings. Asked their ages, they say 333 each.

The anonymity started as a joke. The costumes were conceived as a gag and then formalised because masks let the pair play more shows without anyone knowing who they were. They describe what they do as mantra-rock dada pythago-cubiste, a phrase that has followed them into every profile since. Before the wider world noticed, Quebec's independent scene had: in December 2025 the GAMIQ awards named them artist of the year.

The instrument and the mask

The sound rests on one object. In 2023 Khn commissioned a hybrid instrument from Raphaël Le Breton, a luthier in Alma, Quebec: a Stratocaster-style guitar neck and a bass neck on a single body, with frets cut for quarter tones, so each octave has 24 divisions rather than the usual 12. It took more than 150 hours to build. Khn plays both necks through a loop station, stacking bass and guitar figures in real time, while Klek drums underneath with frequent changes of time signature. There are no backing tracks.

The visual half is just as fixed. Both wear oversized papier-mâché masks with long proboscis-like noses. Khn wears a black suit with white polka dots; Klek wears the inverse. French regional press, previewing a sold-out show at the Grand Mix in Tourcoing on 29 May 2026, described the effect as dissonant and hypnotic, and quoted the New York Times on the band's command of rhythm, repetition, dissonance, surprise and noise.

Vol. 1, Vol. II and the record that stuck

The first album, Vol. 1, came out independently on 14 June 2024. The second, Vol. II, was released on 3 April 2026 on Spectacles Bonzaï, the Quebec label run by their manager Sébastien Collin. It is six tracks and 36 minutes 50 seconds long: Fabienk, Mata Zyklek, Sarniezz, Utzp, Yor Zarad and Angor. The credits keep the family joke going, with recording by Glegg De Poitrine and mixing and mastering by Tek De Poitrine. Arielle Corbeau painted the cover.

Critics took it seriously. Vol. II holds a Metacritic score of 84. Pitchfork gave it 8 out of 10 and wrote that the duo had taken some of the unsexiest music in history and given it groove. Exclaim gave it a 10, the magazine's first perfect score since 2023, calling it magnetic and serpentine. Clash gave it 8, Paste a B plus. Jon Pareles praised it in the New York Times on release day. On 13 April 2026 the French site MetalZone called it disconcerting and addictive, and picked out Utzp for folding polka and manouche jazz into a psychedelic base.

The most measured notice came from Frédéric Cardin at PAN M 360 in Montreal, who liked the riffs and the meaty bass but argued that the microtonal exploration barely scratches the surface compared with the classical avant-garde. Even so, he concluded that the band had managed with brilliance to open the blinkers of the industry. The charts agreed: number one on the UK rock and metal albums chart, number three in Germany, number 11 in Canada, number 19 on the UK albums chart and number 44 on the Billboard 200. Vinyl and CD editions of both albums went on sale worldwide on 12 June 2026, with ATO Records handling the United States.

February 2026: the video

Everything turned on a single performance. In December 2025 the band played the Trans Musicales festival in Rennes, and the Seattle station KEXP filmed the set. KEXP published it on 5 February 2026. It passed two million views inside a week, more than 16 million by June, and has since gone past 18 million, which makes it one of the most viewed videos the station has ever posted. Dave Grohl called the band completely bonkers. Sean Lennon posted that he had never seen a weird instrumental band go viral like this. In March 2026 the duo appeared, masked, on the Radio-Canada talk show Tout le monde en parle.

The people around them are a small Quebec operation. Speaking to Exclaim on 2 June 2026, Collin, who owns the label, manages the band and translates for them, said that after the video exploded they decided not to say yes to anyone, and stayed independent. Distribution runs through F>A>B in Canada outside Quebec, ATO in the United States and Republic of Music elsewhere, with publishing at Third Side Music. Sam Murdock, the label's art director, called them super hardworking, super talented and super clever, and also the least ambitious band he had ever met. Publicist Larissa Souline said none of it was planned and that people took the project and made it their own.

Where they stand now

The 2026 tour opened on 28 March at the Tremor Festival in the Azores, followed by a sold-out Quebec leg in April and May. In Europe in May they played The Great Escape in Brighton, a 250-capacity room in Amiens with Lars Ulrich in the audience, the Grand Mix in Tourcoing and the 2,000-capacity Electric Ballroom in London, where Jack White turned up. White then invited them to open for him at the RBC Amphitheatre in Toronto in June 2026, an 18,000-capacity show that was their first in Toronto and their first anywhere in Canada outside Quebec. On 27 June they played a free main-stage show at the Montreal International Jazz Festival to an estimated 70,000 people.

On 9 July 2026 the Polaris Music Prize named Vol. II on its ten-album shortlist, the band's first nomination, alongside records by Peaches, Tanya Tagaq, Les Louanges and Beverly Glenn-Copeland. The winner receives 30,000 Canadian dollars at Massey Hall in Toronto on 22 September 2026. Exclaim noted that the band had not confirmed whether it would perform, and mentioned a fake Russian band that had been impersonating them on tour. Separately, Fabienk reached the shortlist of the SOCAN Polaris Song Prize, with Yor Zarad on the long list.

Songkick lists 48 upcoming shows across nine countries. The autumn takes in Le Poisson Rouge in New York on 10 September, Riot Fest in Chicago, a UK run from Bristol on 13 October through Glasgow, Dublin and Leeds to two nights at the Troxy in London on 19 and 20 October, two nights at the Élysée Montmartre in Paris on 21 and 22 October, Lyon, Antwerp, Berlin, Hamburg and Amsterdam. November brings History in Toronto, Club Soda in Montreal, four nights at Brooklyn Steel and Corona Capital in Mexico City. The year closes with two nights at the Wiltern in Los Angeles on 4 and 5 December and a Seattle finale on 12 and 13 December, back in the city whose radio station started it.

What a show is like

The show is short, stripped and unbroken. A review of a sold-out Vancouver date describes the two of them appearing from behind a curtain that drops to reveal them already in their poses, then roughly 75 minutes of music with no video backdrop, no lighting package, no backing tracks and no dramatic introductions. Khn builds each piece from the double-neck, looping a bass figure, then a guitar line, then another, while Klek drives the whole thing from the kit. There is almost no singing in the conventional sense; Khn grunts and vocalises, and the reviewer noted that the music was allowed to speak for itself. When it ends the curtain closes and there is no encore. The writer arrived expecting a novelty and, in their words, got a performance.

Consequence, previewing the tour on 22 May 2026, put it in similar terms: double-necked microtonal guitar work over tightly locked, propulsive percussion, with sets built on tension, repetition and release. Fans arrive in homemade masks and polka dots, and merchandise queues run through the set. The band have mostly played their own headline rooms this year, with the Jack White support slot in Toronto the exception, and the French press reported dates selling out across the country before the spring leg had begun.